


another pin pushed in to remind us where we've been

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: i wish we had more time (ws!steve trevor) [5]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Recovery, Winter Soldier AU, brainwashing recovery, pls give steve a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-23 09:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11399370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: “I’m not much of a dancer,” he says.“You taught me how,” says Diana. “Do you need a refresher?”Steve shrugs. “Why not?” he reasons. “Sure, I’ll dance with you.”or: Diana, Steve, and the memory of Veld.





	1. sometimes our compass breaks

**Author's Note:**

> title from Sleeping at Last's "West".

The thing about being in a superhero’s vicinity at all times is that, inevitably, one gets caught up in battles _far_ beyond anything they could’ve ever prepared for.

The sensible thing to do then would be to run screaming in the other direction.

Steve’s not doing that. If it were anybody else, he would be _sorely_ tempted to, but he’d stay anyway.

And since this is Diana, he barely even thinks about running towards this Tuesday’s new bullshit. Luckily for him, it’s not the fire-breathing bulls _again_ , Steve’s had enough of those to last him another lifetime.

Unluckily for him, this time it’s a half-woman, half-dragon creature that’s reportedly been preying on people in a rural village in the Netherlands. Their initial plan had been to lure her off the nearest cliff, but apparently somebody else had killed her that way before.

So now there’s a pitched battle going, and Diana’s deflecting blasts of fire and venom with her shield and dealing out blows with her sword, graceful and calm like she does this everyday. Which she does, when he thinks about it.

And Steve—

—well, between the two of them his strengths lie squarely under the category of _spectacularly fucking useless_ , up against creatures straight out of a kid’s nightmare, in this picture. So he clambers up a tree and sets himself up there with a sniper rifle, trying for a clear shot at the half-woman half-serpent creature’s head, but the monster’s too fast.

Wait.

The thing’s pretty agile for something of its size, enough that Diana’s having trouble landing killing blows, but it’s been slowed down by all the lesser hits.

Steve looks through the rifle scope, notes how the tail lashes back and forth as it and Diana spring apart once more, circling each other.

“Little god-child,” snarls the creature. “You know _nothing_ of what you defend.”

“I know,” says Diana, “much more of them than you might think.” She spins the sword in her hand.

The creature rears back, as if preparing to spit fire at her. She raises her shield.

Steve pulls the trigger.

The creature screams, shuddering, before it turns in agony to see him, and for a second Steve half-thinks that this is how he’ll go, this is how he dies, because of some fucking monster straight from Greek myth, before the tip of Diana’s sword appears in the middle of its chest.

The monster collapses. Diana kneels down as Steve clambers down, reaching out a hand to slowly close its eyes.

“So it’s—” Steve starts.

“She,” Diana corrects, absently. “And her name is— _was_ Sybaris.”

\--

Steve hangs back as Diana talks to the village’s people, shows the leaders the corpse of the monster, explains that they’ll find the corpses of their loved ones in a cave a few miles away, and are there any last rites you wish to perform on them, to ease their souls?

Some of them are so _small_ , the villagers had wept to see them. So had Diana, where only he could see.

And now that the last rites are done, the living have piled out of their homes to celebrate another death. The monster that terrorized them is gone now, and the sheer relief and gratitude is palpable in the air, can be heard in the singing and seen in the dancing.

Diana slips away at some point, and comes back to sit with him on the sidelines a few moments later, with two mugs of frothing beer in her hands.

“You can drink this,” she says, by way of assurance. “I have it from a reliable source that it’s safe for even your stomach to process.”

“You know I can’t get drunk,” he says.

“Neither can I,” says Diana. “So we can both drink this without worrying about the hangovers to come.”

“When you put it that way, how can I refuse?” says Steve, and he reaches out to take one from her hand, and take a sip. It burns going down his throat, enough that he coughs a little. “Where’d you get this?”

“From the local tavern,” says Diana. “There was a small argument while I was there over whether it tasted like horse piss or not, but it was the only thing they had, so.”

“It does,” says Steve. “It’s shitty beer.” He takes another sip anyway, and this one goes down easier. “You should be out there celebrating, you know,” he says. “It’s your victory.”

“Our victory,” she corrects, and he can’t help it, he smiles a little at her. “You bought me enough time to finish Sybaris, and the fight, quickly.” She nods to the people, dancing to an old, old song. “By your reasoning, you should be dancing too.”

“I’m not much of a dancer,” he says.

“You taught me how,” says Diana. “Do you need a refresher?”

Steve shrugs. “Why not?” he reasons. “Sure, I’ll dance with you.”

Diana beams, and says, “All right—give me a moment,” as one of the kids races up to talk to her. She bends down, asks him to keep an eye on her things for her and please can they not touch the sword especially, they’re very precious and the sword is very sharp, and the kid solemnly agrees—as long as she puts in a good word with his parents about his curfew.

“Deal,” says Diana, setting the sword and the shield aside on the bench. The kid hops up onto the bench and pokes at the shield.

“That kid’s smooth,” says Steve, as Diana returns to him.

“He drives a hard bargain, yes,” says Diana, holding out her hand. “May I have this dance?”

Steve huffs out a breath, and stands, takes her hand and lets her and muscle memory guide him along. He rests a hand on the small of her back, she rests hers on his shoulder.

“And we just—sway,” she says, as they start swaying to the beat of the song drifting out. Something from the 1980s, thinks Steve.

He’s been here before. Not in this village, certainly, and not in this exact situation, but he’s danced with her before, in the aftermath of a battle.

She looks up at him. For a moment he sees her from a hundred years ago, snowflakes melting in her hair, laughing and sticking her tongue out to catch a falling speck of snow.

_It’s magical!_

“Do you know any other dances?” he asks.

“Themysciran dances, yes,” says Diana. “I learned them young. It came with being a princess, the responsibility of learning our culture.” She inclines her head a little, and says, “And I learned a great deal more of dancing in this world, after.”

“Teach me some?” says Steve.

“Yes,” says Diana. “But do you know what?”

“What?”

“This is my favorite.”

\--

“We only have one room to let at the moment,” says the village’s innkeeper, in Dutch, lifting her shoulders in a heavy shrug. “The others are either occupied or still being repainted, there was a band a while back that fucked up their rooms in a wild orgy, so.”

“We’ll take the room,” says Steve, also in Dutch, as Diana’s calmly hauling in both their overnight bags from their car on the outskirts of the village, carrying them easily on both shoulders. He’s not entirely sure where he learned Dutch, and some things he’d rather not know about. “How big’s the bed?”

“It’s a king-sized bed,” says the innkeeper, eyeing Diana suspiciously as if she’s seen her before, but just can’t place where. “Miss, we could—”

“It’s all right,” says Diana. “No need to rouse anyone.”

“Do you have extra blankets?” Steve asks. “I’m not a big fan of the cold.”

“Yes, I’ll carry some up,” says the old woman, tucking strands of white hair behind her ear and squinting at Steve. “Do you know, I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

Cold sweat, on the back of his neck. It’s a wonder he summons up a smile. “Guess I just have one of those faces,” he says. “And you don’t have to bother, I’ll carry them up myself.”

“I guess so,” says the innkeeper. “And, well, sure. It’s less work for me that way.”

So Steve ends up carrying the blankets up a flight, dumping them none too gently on the bed as Diana sets the bags down on the ground, gentle with them as if they contain precious, fragile artifacts.

Granted, her bag has her sword, her shield and her lasso, and Steve’s bag has four knives, one specially-modified sniper rifle that would be stupidly expensive to replace and _A Princess of Mars_ , so.

He goes rummaging for the book now, as Diana’s slipping out of her shoes and her armor, changing into something more comfortable for the night. “So tomorrow, we’ll be heading into Belgium for that auction of yours,” he says. “I think if we leave around eight in the morning, and may god help me if we do, we could make it to that auction about—two hours early?”

“It starts at half past three in the afternoon, so a little less than two hours,” says Diana. “Which is a generous estimate. And they do have coffee here.”

“Hallelujah,” Steve mutters, pulling his book out. “So tell me more about this thing you’re planning on acquiring for the Louvre.”

“This thing,” says Diana, perching on the bed, “is a bronze equestrian statuette that dates back to the 7th century, before the common era. It’s a typical example of the works of the time.” She lies back, looks up at the ceiling, continues, “The collector who had it was well-known for meticulously caring for the items under his care, it’ll be incredibly well-preserved.”

“So it’s a tiny statue of a horse?” Steve says.

“A tiny statue of a horse,” says Diana, amused, “that was discovered at a temple sometime during the late nineties. Most likely it was offered to the gods in exchange for a favor.” She looks at him then, and in the soft glow of the lamplight, she looks like something divine.

If he reaches out to touch her, stroke a thumb along her cheek, brush his lips against hers, reverent and worshipful—

He doesn’t. Instead he ducks his head. “Were there little statues of horses on Paradise Island?” he asks.

“Plenty of them,” Diana confirms. “Not all of them were offerings, though.” She huffs out a breath, and says, “When I was no more than three, my mother told me I was made out of clay. She also told me I couldn’t ride until I was five. So I tried to fashion a horse out of clay to beg Zeus to give life to my very own pony.”

Steve finds himself imagining it—little Diana, packing clay together into a pony-shaped statue, fervently praying for her pony to come to life.

“I’m guessing you didn’t get the pony,” he says.

“I did not,” says Diana. “But Antiope thought it was hilarious, and so we ended up offering my clay pony to Poseidon. It was a very solemn ceremony.”

“Is it still there?” he asks.

“In the temple?” says Diana. “Yes. Somewhere.” She sighs, and says, “Maybe not where it used to be, but it’s somewhere. We Amazons treasure the things we craft, even if they’re little misshapen clay ponies. It’s—”

She pauses, eyes darting away to the window, as if seeing some long-ago scene. “A way of remembering,” she continues. “A way for our legacy to continue, not only in our deeds, but in our art as well, and in the stories we tell of those long gone.”

“And in artifacts,” he says. “Pots, statues, weapons, pictures, notebooks.”

“It is our sacred duty to defend the world,” says Diana, as if reciting a creed, and the words are familiar, as if he’s heard them before. “And just as sacred is safeguarding the legacies people leave in it.”

Steve breathes out, and thinks of Claire, her care package full of his things, of blood spattering across paintings. What kind of legacy has he left behind, he wonders.

He isn’t entirely sure he wants to know.

\--

They leave early the next morning, taking the backroads as much as possible to avoid getting stuck in traffic. Diana calls it the scenic route, and spends much of her time in the passenger seat staring out the window, watching the scenery pass them by.

At some point during the drive, she dozes off, and Steve risks a glance at her peaceful expression, her forehead resting against the glass window.

He looks back at the road, and keeps driving.

\--

He’s not certain when the fields and seaside views turned into woods and ruins. He just knows that at some point, he’d taken a turn that felt strangely familiar, and now they’re—

Well, they’re definitely nowhere near the highway. They aren’t even in the Netherlands anymore, they’re somewhere in Belgium, checking the GPS yields that much information, but otherwise? There’s not much hope of knowing where they are.

Except he _remembers_ this place, sort of. Kind of. He doesn’t _know_ it, but there’s a ghost of a memory scratching at the inside of his head that has him pulling over, parking by a nearby tree.

That, and the fact that the gas is running on empty.

Diana stirs, murmurs, “Steve? Are we there yet?”

Steve shakes his head, says, “No. No, we’re. Sort of lost and out of gas.”

“Oh,” says Diana, opening her eyes. “That’s not good.”

“On the bright side,” says Steve, trying to cheer her up and take his own mind off that _itch_ to start walking in some vague direction, “if a serial killer or a monster out of a horror movie tries to jump us, _they’d_ be screwed.”

“So _that’s_ why Netflix keeps recommending horror movies to me,” says Diana, understanding dawning in her eyes. “I thought that was _Claire_.”

“She introduced me,” says Steve. “Any chance you could lift a car and fly us all the way to Brussels?”

“If you’re all right with me passing out in bed for the next few days, certainly,” says Diana, shrugging off her jacket.

“No passing out in bed for a few days, you have four important meetings and also an interview with some lady from the Daily Planet,” says Steve. “I think I’ve been here before, though. There’s some civilization this way.” He waves a hand in the direction of—civilization, he hopes. A gas station. _Something_.

“You’re sure?” says Diana, getting out of the car.

“I’m sure,” says Steve. “Or as sure as I can be of my memory right now.”

The door shuts. “Then lead the way,” says Diana.

\--

It takes Diana some time to realize, because the landscape has shifted over time, the checkpoint abandoned and grown choked with weeds, but this path that they’re walking leads to—

“Veld,” she says, out loud. “Steve, we’re heading to _Veld._ ”

Steve doesn’t answer, doesn’t even seem to hear her. He keeps walking, speeding up the pace until he’s sprinting away from her, and Diana bites back a coarse word picked up from Arthur and follows after him.

 _My kingdom for a horse,_ she thinks to herself, before breaking into a sprint. “Steve!” she calls again. “Steve, come _back_ , you’re going the wrong way!”

She skids to a stop, when she realizes he’s no longer in her sight. For a moment her gut twists into knots—is this where she’ll lose him once more? She’d promised him that Luthor and his goons and all those like them would never lay hands on him again, she wouldn’t _let_ them, what if they’re lying in wait—

She shakes her head. _No,_ she tells herself. _No, they could not have known. This is Steve alone, and he thinks—_

Oh.

Oh, gods.

She breaks into a run once more, only stopping once she sees the fence that separated Veld from the rest of the world. A century ago it had been a wooden fence. It’s a chain-link fence now, with barbed wire running along the top of it to discourage intruders from coming in, and Diana feels her heart sink when she spies bits of fabric, clinging to the sharp wires.

She backs up, then jumps over the fence, landing without a scratch. Then she starts walking slowly into the village, half-expecting to see a cloud of orange gas, bodies of men and women and _children_ everywhere, their faces half-melted.

But the skies are clear, and the village is empty, crumbling into ruin and rubble. The signs and houses that once were maintained so meticulously have fallen into disrepair, with no one around to maintain them.

She walks into the plaza in front of the church, as if in a dream. Here is where the picture was first taken, here is where Sameer told her of his aspirations towards acting, here is where she and Steve danced, here is where she tasted her first snowflake.

She hears the tune first, the sounds of a piano playing drifting over to her ears.

_Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?_

She steps into the bar, careful to avoid the gaping holes in the floor.

And there’s Steve, playing out a tune on the piano. His jeans are torn, blood seeping through the fabric, and there’s a red stain darkening the strip of cloth hastily wrapped around his palm, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“ _For auld lang syne, my dear,_ ” she sings, softly, “ _for auld lang syne._ ”

Steve startles, blinks at the piano, then at Diana.

“Charlie sang that song once,” she says. “Right here. It was much cheerier, then, but there was something sad about it.”

“It’s about old friendships,” says Steve, at last, looking up at her. “I think—I remember asking him once, what it meant. He told me it was about one last drink with a friend that you hadn’t seen in years, and might never see again afterwards.” He huffs out a breath, shakes his head. “I _remember_ that, and the song, but nothing else.”

“He told me the same thing,” says Diana, sitting down next to him. “Are you all right?”

“No,” says Steve, running a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of blood. “I—I’ve been here before.”

“In 1918,” says Diana. “We danced outside while the snow fell and Charlie sang.”

“No,” says Steve, “I know that, I meant _after_ that.”

Diana goes still, and looks up at him. “Veld has been little more than ruins for a century,” she says. “When? And—how?”

“1948,” says Steve, pressing fingers to his temples. “I don’t remember the mission, I just—I just remember we took a detour through here, for some reason, and I think at some point something about this place just—broke through the programming.” He pauses, huffs out a breath. “I buried a body on the outskirts of the village. And— _supplies_.” He straightens up, then practically tears away from the bench to go rummaging behind the counter. “I stuck some supplies here just in case, I knew, I _knew_ I’d never have another chance—”

“You broke away?” says Diana, following him, seeing him yanking out a small box, his fingers trembling.

“I almost did,” he says, rambling now, “I made plans, I had a map and a train ticket and I got on a train to London, I was _in_ London, I was almost out of their grasp, I almost—” He stops, hands shaking, tears welling up in his eyes as he looks up at her, and she thinks, _we almost met again._ “I almost made it.”

_Almost._

There is no word, in any other language, more heartbreaking than that one word. Moreso now, as Diana crouches down to Steve’s level, rests a hand on his shoulder to offer strength, comfort, something to hold.

“I almost made it,” says Steve, again. “If they hadn’t found me, I would have.” _Made it back to you,_ he doesn’t say, but the words hang in the air between them, all the same.

Diana scoots closer, and says, “Etta said she’d seen you, once. I thought it was just grief, at the time, it had been thirty years since you—since the plane exploded, but that really was you, wasn’t it?”

Steve nods, not looking up. He opens the box with shaking fingers, and Diana finds herself staring down at a rudimentary first-aid kit, and fake papers for passage into and out of Germany and London.

“No gas,” says Steve, rueful. “Sorry.”

“I figured,” says Diana. “I’ll call a friend, instead. He’s very quick.” She places a hand on his and says, “We should go. There’s nothing here in Veld for either of us now.”

Nothing but memories. Nothing but ghosts of who they used to be.

Steve closes the box. “Where’d I park the car?” he asks.

“Just a few miles away,” says Diana.

“Okay,” he says. “You’ll be late for your auction at this rate—we should get going. Maybe hit the highway this time.”

\--

They walk out of the bar, Diana calling her friend on her phone. Steve tunes out the argument, and instead looks back at the bar, and the piano.

For a moment he can almost hear a voice in a Scottish accent, singing faintly in the distance, the words too indistinct to make out but the tune familiar. For a moment he can see the ghosts, swaying, laughing, and in the center of it all: himself and Diana, her eyes bright and delighted as the snow falls around them.

_We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne._

He closes his eyes against the hot sting of tears. When he opens them again, the bar is empty, the people are gone, and the voice, Charlie’s voice, has long since faded away.


	2. an epilogue (feat. barry allen)

"Hey, Diana," says Barry Allen, when they've finally found their way back to the car. "So I'm a little late, sorry, signal cut out on me so I had to search for your car—is that who I think it is?"

Steve freezes.

The first time he ever met the Flash, he'd tried to shoot him. Allen had slammed into him right back, just in time for Steve to stab him in the side with a knife. Then Cyborg had punched Steve through a wall in defense of his teammate, but the sheer _speed_ with which the Flash ducked the bullets had thrown him off for a moment.

He's pretty sure Allen still remembers that. And the stabbing.

Sure enough: "Holy _shit_ ," says Allen. "Aren't you the guy who stabbed me in the side a few months back?"

" _Gas_ , Barry," says Diana.

"Also the guy who _shot at me_ ," says Allen.

Steve holds his hands up, says, "I'm not—I don't do that anymore."

"He's with me now," says Diana. "Tell me you have enough gas to get us to Brussels."

"Yeah, I already filled her up for you guys," says Allen, waving a hand at the car. Then he points at Steve, and says, "You're the guy in Diana's picture! One of them, anyway. I have so many questions, among them being: how're you not dead? How're you also more stabbier?"

"It's a long story," says Steve, running his uninjured hand through his hair. "And it involves brainwashing and repeated freezing and thawing over about a century, so." He pauses, narrows his eyes at Allen, and says, "And I'm not _stabbier_."

"The healed-over stab wound where you stabbed me with your _knife_ says otherwise," says Allen. "Diana? Diana. _Diana._ "

"I heard you the first time, Barry," says Diana, already opening the door. "Do you wish to go back home? I know your regular job often requires some very strange hours."

"Nah, not yet, I've never been to Europe," says Allen, faintly bouncing with excitement. "I took a few days off just for this when I got the call. _Brussels_ , holy shit, I've never stayed in Brussels for more than like, five seconds, max. This'll be great." He looks back at Steve again and says, "But, uh—"

"I promise I'm not going to stab you," says Steve, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Or shoot you. _Or_ harm you in any way. Hand to God."

"Barry," says Diana, with a long-suffering sigh, "I think Bruce has started to rub off on you." She opens the passenger door and says, "Get in. There's an auction to get to, and an ice cream parlor I've been wanting to try out."

"I call shotgun!" calls Allen. "And also I take offense."

"I got shotgun _first_ ," says Steve.

Allen pauses a moment, eyes cutting to Steve and taking in his disheveled state, the tear in his jeans, the bandage wrapped around his hand, blood staining the white cloth a dark red. Then he says to Diana, "In deference to your, uh, special friend the assassin—"

" _Former_ assassin," Steve cuts in.

"Former assassin," Allen continues, glancing at Steve once more with a faint crease between his eyebrows, as if he privately doubts it, "I'm gonna take the backseat. I kinda need to nap anyway, that was a good run."

\--

"Do all of your friends know?" says Steve, as they're driving out of the forest. Allen's asleep in the backseat, snoring like a freight train, and Diana's taken the driver's seat this time, on account of Steve's hand still healing from when barbed wire sliced it open. He opens and closes his fist—the wound twinges a little.

"About you?" says Diana. "Not exactly." She takes a right turn onto a dirt road. "Bruce is the one who knows the most details, he tracked the original copy of the picture back down and I e-mailed him some time back to let him know. But Barry and Clark have seen it as well, and Victor's sure to remember punching you out. Arthur might remember you from the battle as well, but little beyond that." She glances at him, and says, quiet, "They're good people."

"I know," says Steve. "I saw them during the battle watching out for you." He flexes his hand again, the wound twinging, and thinks of _almost_ —passport and papers in hand, fragments of memories rattling around his head, hope blooming warm in his chest. (Diana's eyes, her cheek under his fingers—) "Tell me about them?"

"You already know about them," says Diana.

"What I know about them is stuff I got off _fucking_ Luthor," says Steve, and he can't quite find it in himself to feel sorry for despising the guy this much. "You know them better. I want all the embarrassing details."

Diana grins. "It's a good thing Barry's asleep," she says, "because I've got a story about the time he and Victor decided to try and find out just what Victor could and couldn't eat."

\--

Barry wakes up to the sound of someone knocking on the window, groans, and rolls the window down to glare up at whoever interrupted his nap.

"Afternoon, sleepyhead," says dead Steve Trevor, formerly the guy who _stabbed him_ , but that's fine, he supposes. It's a bit harder to finish the job with Wonder Woman hanging around, after all. "Diana told me what your favorite food was, so when we stopped over and she went to get some stuff I just _had_ to get it for you."

"Oh, okay," says Barry, squinting warily at the nondescript box that Steve's got in his hands. Donuts, he hopes. But he's not sure if they're _donuts_ , or like, donuts laced with something.

His stomach rumbles, and he sighs, taking it from Steve and opening it up.

" _What the fuck!_ "

"Wait," says Steve, completely innocently, "are you telling me escargot _isn't_ your favorite food?"

"That is _so gross_ ," says Barry, shoving the box back towards Steve. "Oh my god, she _told you_ about me and Victor and the snails, oh my _god_ —"

"And it was hilarious," says Steve, with a grin, as he pulls the car door open. "Don't worry, she went to get you donuts."

"Oh, thank god," sighs Barry.

**Author's Note:**

> Sybaris is a dracaena (is that how it's spelled?), or a half-woman half-dragon monster, that used to terrorize the town of Delphi. she got pushed off a cliff by a hero. she's not falling for that again.
> 
> the version of "Auld Lang Syne" that they're singing is [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acxnmaVTlZA).


End file.
